Mr. Ahmed Ibrahim El-Lingawy, Vice-Chairman of the Committee for Controlling Unfair Competition at the Chamber of Commerce in Jeddah said that the recent statistics showed that the Saudi market losses due to deceit and counterfeiting exceeded Saudi Riyals one billion during 1999 (about US$ 267 Million). He further said in a meeting held in Riyadh that statistics showed that the deep negative effect of these losses could deeply hurt economic and commercial activities important for economic growth. He clarified that the commercial deceit phenomena and goods forgery are not limited to local economy but also exceed that. They negatively affect the social life and both the safety and security factors pertaining to products which directly affect the human life such as food-stuffs, personal care products, and car spare parts.
As to determining which factories or internal or external authorities, which help in marketing such products, Mr. El-Lingawy said:
"Unfortunately, there are some Saudi individuals and establishments, which have a direct connection in supplying and marketing the forged products, even those which bear forged Saudi quality marks". He described them as careless to whatever harm that may result from their crimes on the health of their brother citizen’s and losses to the national economy.
In his speech, Mr. El-Lingawy reiterated that, most of the forged and imitated products come unfortunately from Arab neighboring countries, particularly from the United Arab Emirates, Syria, and some of those come from the Sultanate of Oman.
He mentioned that Saudi companies try to reach the sources which manufacture forged products in those countries, but they do not have the authority to investigate and interrogate, therefore, they do not achieve any success.
Mr. El-Lingawy emphasized the important role of government authorities which have the power to force whoever imports or sells forged products to disclose their source. Accordingly the authorities would take the necessary actions with the parties involved in exporting those products, and provide such information as well to the harmed companies to enable them to take legal action against the involved parties and secure protection of their rights.
As to the role of Customs in preventing the import of those forged products, he said: some of those products are labeled " made in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia ". The customs have their role in controlling such products and materials, which enter the country through the ports in order to stop the import and smuggling of forbidden and / or prohibited products. There is no doubt that the forged products are forbidden products and should be banned from entering the Kingdom. Some importers do smuggle forged products by hiding them inside vague and /or misleading cartons and, in my view, any-body captured while having a shipment containing forged products should be penalized and must be prevented from importation. The forged products should be destroyed and the importers prohibited from reexporting such products as they may infiltrate through other channels.
We also see that the forgery of Saudi Standardization Authority quality marks as a forgery of a government authority seal which is a more dangerous crime than the forgery of the trade marks. The penalty here must be tougher. This is a theft because the companies pay a fee to the Standardization Authority to achieve the quality mark while the falsifier steals the mark without paying any dues.
Mr. El-Lingawy revealed that the companies which suffer from forgery of their products and forgery of achieved quality mark, submitted a complaint to the Standardization Authority and the Ministry of Commerce. The investigation is still in progress while forged products still exist and they are sold in markets with forged quality marks. Most of these products are imported from outside the Kingdom.
He added that the Committee for Controlling Unfair Competition at the Chamber of Commerce in Jeddah has about 20 national local companies. The most important achievement of the committee, which was established in 1998, was hosting the first seminar for controlling the commercial deceit in the Gulf countries. The Seminar, which was held in Jeddah in October 1999, had issued strong and unified recommendations throughout the Gulf Countries in order to control forgery and imitation of products in the organization. The Committee is presently following up the implementation and application of these recommendations.
Mr. El-Lingawy clarified that there are two types of deceit: The first type is imitation which means the existence of products which do not bear the same commercial name of the original product but imitate all the external features in packaging and color and usually have a lower price due to its poor quality and non compliance with safety specifications. The second type is the forged products which bear the same name of the original product and have the same external specifications so that it becomes impossible for the consumer to know the difference between them until he uses these products. Usually the forged products have the same price of the original although they have no effective materials or specifications and use bad and cheap materials which are harmful to the consumer health .